Interesting article in the Atlantic by Senior Editor Joshua Greene. He writes about how putting something on the ballot that actually means something to a certain segment of society moves that group, in this case younger people, under 35, to participate — vote.

Are there benefits for the Democrats, Republicans or or does any of this just plain help the people to have a say?

War on the Little People

When you’ve lost you job because of the Banks, Wall Street, Obama economy fix and you can’t collect any unemployment benefits and end up homeless and hungry look to your friends, relatives and neighbors that are Republican.

Senate Republicans have blocked another effort to extend unemployment benefits to millions of jobless workers. Emergency jobless benefits, which provide up to ninety-nine weeks of income support, expired June 2. More than 1.2 million people have already had their checks cut off, but that total is expected soon to rise to two million people.

What good are leash laws when they’re not enforced. What’s that dog doing running loose in the public park anyway?

“He’s a regular there,” Graunitz said . . .

If Jason Graunitz, an employee with the city Parks and Recreation Department, was doing his job the first thing he’d do is call the police to get the dog under control. This is why the leash law isn’t worth it’s weight in dog crap.

Graunitz says, ”It’s just a matter of time before it happens to a kid on the playground.” “All I could think of was my kid getting attacked by that dog.” This is just MORE dog crap!

Just listen to this guy, “Absent finding the animal, Graunitz said, he’ll have to undergo a rabies vaccination, which would be uncomfortable and paid for by the taxpayers.” I hear the shots are more than just “uncomfortable.” Maybe he’ll do more than try to justify letting a “fully grown pit bull” run loose in a public park.

Besides, what’s the difference between that teenager letting his dog bite someone (he established “eye contact”) or that teenager walking up behind Graunitz and whacking him with a stick with nails in it? You think this guy learned anything about dogs and kids?

“Eureka water, sewer rates set to rise,” NO THANKS TO THE EUREKA CITY COUNCIL!

The City Council examined an analysis of next year’s water and wastewater rate increases Thursday night, with council members weighing in on the change. The analysis estimated that customers would see a 53 percent increase in water rates over the next five years. For next year’s combined water and wastewater rates, the city expects an increase of $8.22 for residential customers and more substantial increases for some commercial customers.

Who do these people represent? The people who voted them into office? First it was mandatory garbage collection, then its mandatory recycling and now mandatory higher water and sewer rates. President Obama wants mandatory health insurance imposed on everyone too. We certainly can’t have some slacker refusing to pay his or her fair share.

This “peachy” cop-out by the new guy, Frank Jager says it all, “It’s going to be a hard pill for everybody to swallow — it’s not something I want to force on people but we don’t have a choice,” he said. “The sewer systems are falling apart, the water system needs to be addressed.”

NO CHOICE? If what he says is true, then someone was either awfully incompetent, negligent or he’s full of bull. There is always a choice – the easy choice, loot the people you’re supposed to represent, then blame them.

If you need a good example of why Joe Blow blames the voters for these people’s self-serving actions, drop by the Humboldt Herald Blog and read some of the comments about another waste of time demonstrated before this self-same City Council, voicing your worthless opinions: Mandatory garbage vs. the Tri City Weekly.

Maybe these “representatives” would be better advised to spend their time formulating some inventive solutions rather than wasting their time trying to “educate” us dumb people with all the deep pockets. Maybe it’s time to re-educate these bought and paid for representatives with a few home-grown solutions since “representative” government certainly doesn’t work when they think and act like these people think and act.

When you find someone that can truly represent the people rather than themselves and their worthless opinions and belief systems, let me know. Will you?

He offers some common sense suggestions in the latter part of his article on “How to Protect Yourself Without Dangerous Drugs and Vaccination.” He also offers:

The number of fatalities, and suspected and confirmed cases across the world change depending on the source, so your best bet — if you want the latest numbers — is to use Google Maps” Swine Flu Tracker.

Swine Flu UpdateDr. Mercola: “It has been a few days since we sent out our Critical Alert, please read the updates including the latest stats and an incredible video from Real News.com that explores how factory farming has contributed to the epidemic.”

I just found out that my home, conservatively speaking, depreciated 16.4 percent and the Republican’s are responsible. That’s a lot of money flat gone in one year!

Not only that but the dirty b******’s are fighting the stimulus package that’s preconditioned on more political smoke-blowing double-talk rather than enforce the law. Talk about a pack of mongrel dogs!

Report: $9.7 Trillion Government Tab in Financial Crisis
Bloomberg News estimates the economic stimulus package would raise the government tab in addressing the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion. In addition to the Wall Street bailout and the current stimulus plan, the US government is believed to have lent or spent more than $8 trillion through the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The $9.7 trillion figure would nearly be enough to pay off every mortgage in the nation.

This is what we can look forward to according to this economist and professor of public affairs at the University of Texas:

JAMES GALBRAITH: The stimulus package is a very good bill, and it should pass. It will not, by itself, deal with the economic crisis that we’re in. I think we should be very clear about that. Expectations for an early turnaround should not be—you know, should not be very high. A clear—a major problem that we face is that the stimulus package is sized so that it will work only if the revival of credit, which is part of the plan that the Treasury is announcing today, also works. And the problem is that that plan is still, I think, not well designed and is not likely to succeed. I think it actually, in many ways, misconceives the nature of the credit problem that we have, and therefore is very unlikely to succeed at bringing about an early revival of credit markets, of housing markets, of consumer credit markets, automobile loans, and the rest. Now, we could talk about that, but I think it’s very important to understand that this spending package is really geared to the success of this other piece, and this other piece is much more problematic than the spending package is.

What should happen today, BUT probably won’t:

JAMES GALBRAITH: Well, the crucial question is, on what terms does the Treasury plan to guarantee or to repurchase or to otherwise deal with the bad assets that the banks have? These assets are mortgage-backed securities. They are securities derived from subprime loans that were made in an atmosphere of regulatory laxness and complicity and fraud, basically, during the Bush administration, which came to take over the system of housing finance and to infect it with assets which nobody trusts, which nobody can value. And nobody really knows what’s in the files, what’s on the loan tapes of those—that underlie those securities. So the question that I think we need to ask is, before we issue a public guarantee, does the Treasury of the United States plan to conduct a meticulous audit of the assets that underlie the securities that they’re expecting to take off the banks’ books, so that we, the taxpayer, can have an idea of what, if anything, these securities are worth?

And the problem is that when you—the little bit of checking that has been done appears to reveal that a very large fraction of these securities contain, on the face of it, misrepresentation or fraud in the files. And so, we are looking at an asset which nobody, no outside investor doing due diligence on behalf of a client for whom they have some responsibility, would touch. And that is the issue. That’s the problem.

If that is indeed the case, then I think it’s fair to conclude that the large banks, which the Treasury is trying very hard to protect, cannot in fact be protected, that they are in fact insolvent, and that the proper approach for dealing with them is for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to move in and take the steps that the FDIC normally takes when dealing with insolvent banks.

And the sooner that you get to that and the sooner that you take these steps, which every administration, including the Bush administration, actually took in certain cases—replacing the management, making the risk capital take the first loss, reorganizing the institution, guaranteeing the deposits so that there isn’t a run, reopening the bank under new management so that it can begin to function again as it should have all along as a normal bank—the sooner you get to that, the more quickly you’ll work through the crisis.

The more you delay and the more you try to essentially prop up an institution whose books have already been poisoned, in effect, by this—the practices of the past few years, the longer it will take before the credit markets begin to function again. And as I said before, the functioning of the credit markets is absolutely essential to the success of the larger package, of the stimulus package and everything else, in beginning to revive the economy.

Maybe I can’t do anything about President Obama’s gutless inability to hold George Bush, his people, and the banks accountable for their crimes, but I certainly can those that I know were responsible for installing and supporting that rogue regime for the past decade. I can show them how the Second Commandment works.

New Class of Ruling Elite To Hate

Not much hope in this “no-plan”:

MICHAEL HUDSON: (Obama recover plan is no good.) Because it’s not leading to recovery at all. It’s now up to $12 trillion. It’s a giveaway to the banks, to the creditors, without a single penny for actual debt reduction. And I had thought that at least half a percentage point, $50 billion, was going to be to write down troubled mortgage debtors, but it turns out that not a penny of mortgage debt is going to be written down. When the banks have lent more money than a mortgage owes, with 38 percent, the government is going to create its own debt to come in and make up the difference, so the debt is going to continue to grow exponentially, and it’s way beyond the ability of the economy to pay. If people have to pay the amount of debt that they have now, there won’t be any money to buy goods and services, companies will not sell as much, they’ll invest less, they’ll hire less, and they’ll continue to downsize.

And what’s happened is that this is the greatest transfer of wealth really in American history. It’s doubled the American debt. The closest parallel I can think of is William the Conqueror’s conquest of England. He came with a military band, conquered the land and imposed taxes over the whole land, basing it all on the Domesday Book, what—the rent could be squeezed out. In this case, the rip-off has been non-military. The bankers have done insider dealing to get the government to give them or guarantee them $12 trillion of bad loans they’ve made, many of them fraudulent.

And then they’re trying to blame the poor for all this, as if the poor are somehow exploiting the rich by taking out more loans than they can pay. Yesterday, Senator McCain said—he warned that all of this debt was going to be paid by the future generation, and we’re exploiting them. But that’s not how to think of it at all. When you have a debt that goes to a future generation, you have taxpayers paying to bondholders, just like in the nineteenth century you had the western states paying to the eastern states. So what you’ve done is given $12 trillion to the richest one percent—or ten percent of the population, and you’ve indebted the economy and the government to them for the next hundred years. You’ve created a new class of ruling families.–Updated February 13, 2009

Be sure that even if you are a “NON-JUDGING ADULT” that you read the following commentary from this young woman. It will make you proud!

Perhaps, all of you “non-judging adults” should ask yourselves, is this the first shot across your “boat’s” bow? Little baby steps on the way to the truth. Then look out!

Regarding those “judging adults,” of which are the majority, I’ve observed in my lifetime that everyone of them I had the misfortune to encounter were incapable of evaluating anything let alone themselves. They clearly saw the truth because they were deliberate and malitious in everything they did.

Before I begin this, I would like to write that I know that not all adults are harsh or bad, and I have a lot of respect for most adults I know personally. If you are a non-judging adult, then please dismiss the following, somewhat harsh letter. To those of you to whom this letter applies, maybe you don’t know who you are, but please evaluate yourself so that maybe you can see the truth of what you’re doing.

Every time I open up a newspaper, or flip on the TV or computer, I find at least one thing to make me outraged at how teenagers are judged. Being a 17-year-old girl, I ask all of you adults the question, “Who are you to judge?”

At one time, yes, you were our age, but you did not have to grow up in the corrupt society today. Many adults complain about us. Many adults talk about how we need educating, how we need to be taught about sex and the weary ways of the world. Guess what? We aren’t dumb, we know about sex, STDs, and the chances of becoming pregnant, and it’s still happening.

The very idea that many of you think reading from a book in our prison-like school establishments will take the place of learning from experience shows ignorance.

You complain about us and our wasteful lifestyles, yet you obviously have no idea what worries we have to deal with today. We teenagers did not allow war, we did not pollute and build factories, we did not develop a sexist society, we did not ruin the educational system, we did not allow the government to gain such control over its citizens. We did not elect Clinton, or Bush, we did not create an economic crisis.

You as adults feel you have the right to judge us, but when you were young you did not have to worry about whether there would be clean water when you grow up and want to raise children. You did not worry about ecosystems being destroyed, and species dying off at alarmingly fast rates. You did not have to worry about the possibility of living on the streets because of a looming depression and failing job market. You did not have to worry about the after-effects of a war that doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon, as people in the government push the date to bring troops home farther into the future.

Since you do not know what it’s like to be a teenager today, remember this for our sake; an old Indian proverb says, “The Earth does not belong to us so that we may give it to our children, rather, the Earth belongs to our children, and we are merely borrowing it from them.”

Making Your Comments Count

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